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Aston Villa had bad injury news this week. Christian Benteke is out for months, Gabby Agbonlahor had an illness that made him miss this weekend, and Fabian Delph was a late scratch from an achilles injury. Nevertheless, they were playing Fulham at Villa Park. Fulham, who have never won at Villa Park in the Premier League. Fulham, who are bottom of the table. So of course, Fulham won.
Because that's just perfect.
My recap today is going to be short because I want to spend as little time thinking about this match as is possible. So here we go. The first half was absolutely dreadful. Neither team could do much of anything, and as was pointed out a few places, the fact that AVL-FUL looks so much like AWFUL was very fitting. So yeah, the first half was miserable.
The second half was, at least, more exciting. It began to thrive when Kieran Richardson scored an absolutely beautiful goal to give Fulham the lead. The Villa defense were all distracted by a butterfly or something so they left Richardson unmarked and he took full advantage:
A few minutes later though, Grant Holt justified his existence in a Villa kit by equalizing. Grant Holt! In front of the Holte End! Grant Holte!
I love that gif. You literally cannot see Holt and then suddenly he appears and sends Marc Albrighton's corner into the net. What a joy.
Then, Matthew Lowton and goal-line technology saved Villa from giving up a Lewis Holtby goal. Look at how close this was:
Or from this angle:
I am not exaggerating when I say that the goal decision graphic showed a ball that was no more than a millimeter from being a goal. Maybe less.
But that was all for naught as Hugo Rodallega, who I seem to remember being a Villa target ages ago, decided to give Fulham some hope in their relegation battle by scoring the winning goal.
So yep. After beating Norwich City 4-1 and Chelsea 1-0, Villa have lost three matches in a row. 1-4 against Stoke, 4-1 against Manchester United, and 1-2 against bottom-of-the-table Fulham.
Thanks for reading. Now go do something else with your day. If you spend any more time thinking about Aston Villa you are wasting that time. This team looks like junk and play like it too. When is this season over?
